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Barbie! Oh Noes!

I do remember a decade ago when Mattel gave us a Barbie doll that could speak.
LOL, 1992 was not a decade ago.

Although, I often make the same error, and joke about it. But. THIRTY years ago.

Teen Talk Barbie is an edition of Mattel's Barbie doll, introduced in 1992, that incorporates a voice box to speak one of four randomly selected phrases when a button is pushed. It became controversial because one of the phrases was "Math class is tough", and was also later used for a protest wherein some dolls had the voice boxes exchanged with those for Talking Duke G.I. Joe action figures produced by Hasbro.
 
Doesn't anyone stick to their values anymore?
Hardly surprising. Anyone with long-term memory knows that conservatives have always let television pundits reinvent their supposed "traditional values" every ten years or so, and liberals never promised inflexibility to begin with.

The whole Barbie phenomenon is fueled by generational nostalgia, the "sides" are just doing different things with that nostalgia in accordance with their political ends. Republicans never did like the career Barbie thing, or the different skin color Barbies, or the slightly wider hipped Barbie, or wheelchair Barbie, or taking some time off from relationships to work on herself Barbie. To the Outraged Right, that was always "politically correct" (90s speak for "woke"), but a generation of girls (now adults with money to burn on movie tickets) grew up with that more liberated branding and now think of that era as peak Barbie, so they are no more willing than their brainlessly furious elders to consider their way of playing with her wrong. We have never not been fighting over Barbie; she symbolizes both womanhood and parenting, so there always have been and always will be bitter fights over her legacy. From her sex toy origins to every new year's desperate by Mattel to keep her relevant, there is always something to be freshly enraged about in Barbietopia.
Barbie symbolizes parenting? How? When?
 
Doesn't anyone stick to their values anymore?
Hardly surprising. Anyone with long-term memory knows that conservatives have always let television pundits reinvent their supposed "traditional values" every ten years or so, and liberals never promised inflexibility to begin with.

The whole Barbie phenomenon is fueled by generational nostalgia, the "sides" are just doing different things with that nostalgia in accordance with their political ends. Republicans never did like the career Barbie thing, or the different skin color Barbies, or the slightly wider hipped Barbie, or wheelchair Barbie, or taking some time off from relationships to work on herself Barbie. To the Outraged Right, that was always "politically correct" (90s speak for "woke"), but a generation of girls (now adults with money to burn on movie tickets) grew up with that more liberated branding and now think of that era as peak Barbie, so they are no more willing than their brainlessly furious elders to consider their way of playing with her wrong. We have never not been fighting over Barbie; she symbolizes both womanhood and parenting, so there always have been and always will be bitter fights over her legacy. From her sex toy origins to every new year's desperate by Mattel to keep her relevant, there is always something to be freshly enraged about in Barbietopia.
Barbie symbolizes parenting? How? When?
In the "how should our daughters be raised to think and behave" sense. It's usually groups loke the Committee of Rural American Parents who are mad at her about whatever she's doing at the moment.
 
It is even better to do it without words, but with plot reversals doing the speaking. This way people don't even realize they are getting a message.
If you're too subtle, conservatives just pretend the message isn't there at all. Like the many neo-fascists who think Star Trek is now "getting Woke" because the last generation's Obvious became the next generations' Unnoticeable.
 
Some people seem to think that ideas can't be improved or made better, and we need to be stuck 30 years ago in time
I don't want to make you feel old here, Jimmy, but if someone wants Barbie to be Vanna White, they are trying to get back 60 years, not 30. 1993 Barbie was peak Woke trash Barbie.
 
Barbie opened big -- 70 million big, on opening day, which shows me that I know nothing about the box office these days. The promos look revolting to me, and every Gosling close up shows us that Ken has the forehead creases of a 43-year-old man.
Fun facts about the "real" Barbie (the plastic one):
Actual special edition Barbies of the past: George Washington Barbie (Colonial theme); Barbie Forever with Tanner (he was a pooping dog, and was sold with his poop); Totally Stylin' Tattoos Barbie (with 40 tattoo stickers so you could tramp stamp her); Coca Cola Barbie (because Barbie wouldn't sell out); Student Teacher Barbie; Computer Engineer Barbie; Ghost Barbie; Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds Barbie. I know there's room for satirical fake additions to the list, but could they top the real ones? (Please, please, no MAGA Barbie.)
 
There is a Netflix series “The Toys That Made Us” that was really good. The episode on Barbie was interesting. Those people can be vicious At times. Like when they learned a competitor was coming out with an exciting new doll line. The Barbie people worked at getting inside information on what it was. Once they found out it was rock star dolls (Jem and the Holograms) they quickly made Barbie and the Rockers, and put them out a few weeks before Jem.
 
I have lived a long life paying no attention to Barbie. No all of a sudden we have the new Barbie movie. And the right wing loonies are losing their minds over this silly movie. Woke! Feminist! Man hating! Destroying American civilization! I am beginning to pay attention to the delicious and unhinged MAGAt Barbie hysteria. The delicious tears of helpless right wingers. Squeal louder right wing loonies!

Google right wing Barbie hysteria for more.

Which right wing outrage? Are you talking about the Ben Shapiro burning Barbie dolls bullshit? Or are you talking about how Republicans believe it is subliminally supporting China and its expansion into the South China Sea?

When you say "right wing Barbie hysteria", you really need to be more specific.
 
I just wanted to say: The movie is (as far as I can tell reading reviews) primarily about women and women not needing....Ken. Of course the right is going to lose its mind.

Dolls are supposed to be played with and subject to their owner's whims. Barbie was supposed to be a roll model, y'all.

Turns out, maybe she is. No wonder the right is losing it's mind.
 


I think the word "satire" has gone the way of "literally". And by that I mean the word can mean anything you want it to mean so the word itself is now redundant. Seriously, how the living fuck can you parody this article?
 
Oh my god. I just realized something.

In my spare bedroom - which used to be occupied by my daughter - on the top shelf in the closet, I have...Barbies.

Only a couple of them, but like some of her stuffed animals and a few other things I never got around to getting rid of them.

Is there like...a "woke" hotline I can call? Because I'm not going to be able to sleep at night knowing that I have such a radical leftist anti-American product in my home. I know this place doesn't do this often, but...pray for me. I may not survive this.
AFIAK there are a few Barbies around here--originally intended as a gift for someone who is now 18.
 
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